‘No one has approached us about opposite sex bathrooms’

While Michigan legislators are grappling with laws affecting transgender students and the bathrooms they use, Garden City High School offers students the use of a unisex bathroom in the main office.

GCHS Principal Sharon Kollar said there’s an open line of communication with transgender students.

“No one has approached us about having opposite-sex bathrooms,” she said.

Statewide, the transgender bathroom issue is brewing. Escanaba Republican Sen. Tom Casperson said he will introduce legislation to stop kids sharing bathrooms with students who are “biologically different.”

Debate about transgender students came to the surface when proposed guidelines from the State Board of Education outlined recommendations on how to address transgender K-12 students who want to use bathrooms and locker rooms that match their gender identity.

Casperson said transgender students should be able to use staff facilities or their own bathrooms only with parental consent, and that they should be barred from using bathrooms that don’t match their birth certificate.

The proposed state board policy also calls for the support and creation of extracurricular student-led clubs, such as gay-straight alliances or gender and sexuality alliances in middle and high school.

GCHS has a Gay-Straight Alliance group for students to meet with two advisers “to openly talk, discuss or share any of their preferences,” Kollar said.

Changes are underway. One transgender student who is graduating this year will be walking with students in the gender they identify with, Kollar said.

GCHS Superintendent Derek Fisher said school counselors are also available to work with families about concerns they may have with a transgender student.